Millions of cups of coffee and tea are brewed and consumed each and every day. As each pot of coffee or tea is brewed, the brewing cycle releases coffee and tannin oils from the coffee and tea. These oils are deposited as a brown oily residue on the coffee and tea makers' brewing and dispensing equipment. The oily residue tends be acidic and, thus, tends to sour the taste of the coffee or tea, especially when the residue is left to build up over a long period of time. Thus, it is desirable to clean the brewing and dispensing equipment, i.e., the brew basket, pot or server, spouts, sight glass, etc., to avoid brewing harsh or sour tasting coffee or tea.
Currently, cleaning procedures vary from using salt and ice to using bleach. Many liquid commercial cleaners have been developed for glass decanters, airpots, and glass lined thermal servers. Powders such as urn cleaners have also been developed. These powders usually comes in bulk supply, which requires the user to measure an amount to be used, or may come in a measured amount in an envelope.
The user will normally, in the case of a liquid cleaner, squeeze a soft plastic bottle with a tilt top closure into the pot or server and, in the case of a powder, merely place the loose powder into an open filter in the brew basket, and then add hot water or run the brew cycle to activate the concentration of the cleaner. In either case, using these cleaners to clean the coffee or tea makers is less than convenient since it requires a certain amount of manipulation and, in some cases, measurement of the cleaner.
Also, these cleaners commonly include such harsh chemicals as hypochlorite. Hypochlorite has a chlorine bleach smell that may linger after the cleaner is used.
For safety reasons, some of the liquid cleaners include a coloring dye to indicate that the liquid in the pot or dispenser contains a cleaning agent.
In view of the foregoing, it would be desirable to have a coffee or tea maker cleaner that comes in a convenient, ready-to-use (RTU) configuration, that does not include harsh chemicals that leave a chlorine bleach smell, and that includes a coloring dye for safety reasons.